CM NEW YORK - Award winning-actress Emma Stone is to honour tennis legend Billie Jean King at this year’s US Open. The Academy Award-winning actress is poised to portray King in her upcoming movie ‘Battle of the Sexes’ - which centres on the 1973 tennis match between the American icon and male player Bobby Riggs - and she will pay tribute to King before the Women’s Final at Flushing Meadows in New York City on Saturday. Emma, 28, will be joined at the pre-match event by songwriter Sara Bareilles - whose track ‘If I Dare’ features in the film - and USTA President Katrina Adams, according to the New York Post newspaper’s Page Six Column.
As well as being one of the most decorated players of all time, King has been widely praised for her activism, which included campaigning for equal prize money in the men’s and women’s games.
And in recent months, Emma has been similarly outspoken about the gender pay gap in Hollywood. Emma revealed some of her male co-stars have previously volunteered to take a pay cut so they could achieve ‘’parity’’.
Reflecting on her experiences of the movie industry, the actress explained: ‘’In my career so far, I’ve needed my male co-stars to take a pay cut so that I may have parity with them. And that’s something they do for me because they feel it’s what’s right and fair.
‘’That’s something that’s also not discussed, necessarily - that our getting equal pay is going to require people to selflessly say, ‘That’s what’s fair.’
‘’If my male co-star, who has a higher quote than me but believes we are equal, takes a pay cut so that I can match him, that changes my quote in the future and changes my life.’’
